Walt hopes that the Globe and Mail's David Parkin, won't mind our copying his excellent editorial cartoon from a few days back. [Don't sue! We're not making any money on this! Ed.] The point being made is that Canadian Prime Minister Steve Harper and his gay Minister of Foreign Affairs could hardly have expected that their decision to enlist in President Obarmy's coalition against ISIL* would be without consequences.
A young Canuck, fighting on the side of the Islamic terrorists, had posted a video, not long before, warning "we're coming to get you!" -- referring to not just the Great Satan but the British, Canadians, Australians and any others who would dare to wage war on them, or stand in the way of their jihad to establish a New Caliphate in the Middle East.
(The phrase "New Caliphate" was actually used way back in 2011 by Mark Steyn, in After America!)
Ignoring the warning, as well as the protestations of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, Mr. Harpoon used his majority in Canada's Parliament to push through approval of his commitment of half a dozen of the Royal Canadian Air Force's aging CF-18 Hornets to the bombing campaign against ISIS* in Iraq. As for boots on the ground, a couple of dozen Canadian soldiers are already in station, although of course they are supposedly just training/advising/consulting/whatever. The commitment is supposedly for a period of six (6) months.
Is Canada in, or just partly in? Former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, who famously refused to join in the Bush War in Iraq said "Either you're in or you're not," adding that once you sent even one soldier or one airplane, you're in.
Having effectively declared war on the Islamic State*, Mr. Harper should not be surprised that the IS* has now declared war on Canada. In terms of casualties, the score so far is IS 2 - Canada 2. And we're not talking civilians here, but military casualties -- two Canadian soldiers killed by Islamic terrorists (or terrorist wannabes) not in the Middle East, but right in the middle of Canada, at or near the nation's capital.
On Monday, a "radicalized" young convert to Islam, Martin "Ahmad" Rouleau, sat in his car near a Tim Hortons in St-Jean-sur-Richelieu (a Montréal suburb, home to the Collège Militaire Royal), waiting for some soldiers to finish their coffee. When they came out, he punched the gas pedal and ran a couple of them down, killing Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent, 53, a 28-year career soldier. Following a car chase, Rouleau was dead by Québec police.
Québec's International Affairs Minister, Christine St-Pierre, said "It’s terrible, it’s very sad, we have to be concerned about that, we have to fight those phenomena." She did not hesitate to call the hit-and-run slaying a terrorist attack.
Turns out that M. Rouleau was known to police, having in fact been arrested by the Mounties a couple of weeks before the incident. He told them something to the effect that he wanted to go to Syria and fight with ISIS*, so they took away his passport. Seems to Walt it would have been better to let him go, so whatever fighting he was going to do would be over there, not in his own back yard!
Now to this morning's shootings in Ottawa. As I write, reports (sometimes conflicting) are still coming in. This much is clear. Parliament Hill came under attack around 10 a.m. today, when a man with a rifle shot and killed a soldier standing guard at the National War Memorial.
He then seized a car and drove right up to the doors of the nearby Centre Block. You could still do that in Ottawa because, hey, these things only happen in Washington. Members of Parliament and other witnesses reported that 30 to 50 shots were fired inside the building, some by the gunman and some by the House of Commons Sergeant at Arms, whose aim was apparently better than that of the gunman, who was confirmed dead in the main hall.
Ottawa police confirmed within the last hour that the soldier died from his injuries. He was a member of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, a reserve unit based in Hamilton, Ontario, which was doing guard duty at the War Memorial this week.
The identity or nationality of the gunman has not been revealed, but Walt is assuming -- along with 99% of the media and everyone else -- that he was yet another Islamic terrorist, whether homegrown or imported, perhaps as a refugee or asylum-seeker under Canada's notoriously lax immigration laws. Any connection with Monday's killing will probably be denied or downplayed, for fear of provoking a backlash against Muslims...and against Mr. Harper's ill-considered decision to be part of a fight in which Canada has no dog.
* Note on nomenclature: The Prez and his camp followers (Messrs Harper et al.) insist on calling the Islamic terrorists "ISIL", standing for "Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant". The media and everybody else calls them "ISIS", for "Islamic State in Iraq and Syria", which is what they call themselves. Or just "IS" for "Islamic State". Why does the Great Leader of the Coalition keep saying "ISIL"? Because to say "ISIS" would imply that we are going to be fighting (or bombing, at least) in Syria, which would be the same as supporting the Syrian government of Basher Assad, and of course we wouldn't want to do that.
Further reading on WWW: "Are you confused about the war in the Middle East?"
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